Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship AOPS

[Weinie]

To bad we don't have leadership to say "This is not acceptable and needs to be repaired before going to sea and damm the inconveniences"

Grasshopper, you must learn.

 

[Swampbuggy]

Is there any sense in taking, say, 4-5 out of service to do the required deep repairs and have them ready in 4 years or so to take the place of the worst of the rest? It seems we’re going to need them much longer to bridge the gap to CSC.

 

[Navy_Pete]

To bad we don't have leadership to say "This is not acceptable and needs to be repaired before going to sea and damm the inconveniences"

That's what risk assessments are used for, but don't try and look at more then one at a time; it's too inconvenient with several thousand to figure out the overall big impact.

Also, don't include crewing, that's not a technical risk. Oh, and training.

It used to be 'talk it until it's blue' as a joke (ie acceptable with review) and that somehow became 'talk it until it's yellow' (undesirable). That can include up to a scenario with multiple losses of lives, loss of platform or complete mission failure, as long as the probability is 'occasional'.

Commercial rules avoid this by simply having red lines where things are fixed before sailing. We pretend we 'actively' manage those risks, but it falls apart as soon as you poke at it.

 

[Underway]

Is there any sense in taking, say, 4-5 out of service to do the required deep repairs and have them ready in 4 years or so to take the place of the worst of the rest? It seems we’re going to need them much longer to bridge the gap to CSC.

I think it's going to be like when FELEX was implemented. MCDV's and AOPS will start shouldering the burden of OPs to a certain extent. They've added Davie to the list of places that can do repairs so have increased capacity by 50%. So it will be 3 out of service at a time. But four years? No.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Is there any sense in taking, say, 4-5 out of service to do the required deep repairs and have them ready in 4 years or so to take the place of the worst of the rest? It seems we’re going to need them much longer to bridge the gap to CSC.

Yes, but we don't have the people to manage that kind of workload; it takes a lot of expertise to do properly, and still requires a lot of ship staff to assist.

Lot of technical issues, but also a lot of contractual and logisitic support required. Steel repairs are actually pretty easy as is big piping repairs, just a lot of work with a lot of interference items, so can get complicated. It's all the obsolete things like valves, controllers etc that are 30 years old without drop in replacements available. In a lot of cases the tech data is pretty lacking so basically have to go back to first principles to figure out a replacement, and then re-engineer the attachement point and signals.

Some we have the expertise to do, so is an HR shortfall. For some things we never had the expertise and the widget requires specialized SME support.

There are thousands of obsolete line items just in the CPF alone; the whole class is a 5000 tonne marshmallow.

 

[Swampbuggy]

I think it's going to be like when FELEX was implemented. MCDV's and AOPS will start shouldering the burden of OPs to a certain extent. They've added Davie to the list of places that can do repairs so have increased capacity by 50%. So it will be 3 out of service at a time. But four years? No.

In that case, just as a sort of spitballing exercise, would it be worth it to build AOPS 7-8 as RCN vessels (at least in the interim), since the line is already in full swing and refining their product? 2 more AOPS would help to spread the load around and could always be divested to the CCG if deemed necessary when CSC’s are available?

 

[Underway]

In that case, just as a sort of spitballing exercise, would it be worth it to build AOPS 7-8 as RCN vessels (at least in the interim), since the line is already in full swing and refining their product? 2 more AOPS would help to spread the load around and could always be divested to the CCG if deemed necessary when CSC’s are available?

I don't see it, and frankly, they've done a not insignificant redesign for ships 7 and 8 so the Coast Guard can use them. No need for magazines, guns, ops room, comms room, or boarding RHIB. But they need a lab space instead for example, and I think a more powerful crane.

 

[RedFive]

the whole class is a 5000 tonne marshmallow.

Because of poor design, age, or both?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Because of poor design, age, or both?

I think mostly age and not enough lifecycle support. As I recall they were considered very modern and impressive ships when they first came out.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I think mostly age and not enough lifecycle support. As I recall they were considered very modern and impressive ships when they first came out ...

... in the 1980s. Remember the late 1980s? Milli Vanilli and rotary dial phones?

 

[Underway]

I think mostly age and not enough lifecycle support. As I recall they were considered very modern and impressive ships when they first came out.

They still are good ships from a performance perspective. With a helo embarked they are still very good UWW platforms. But they are like an old star goalie who has had injuries. Can still play the game, but take longer to recover each time, with more icing, massages, acupuncture and Tylenol. Need a pregame shot in their knee to ignore the niggling pain and are one save away from pulling their groin and being out for six weeks.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Because of poor design, age, or both?

The mechanical side is generally a really good design. A few odd choices, but you find that on any complicated ship.

We're 30 odd years into them now though, and they have a 30 year design life, so at the point where some items failing are original to build.

Pretty crazy to see a 300 class bronze valve fail because turbulence has eroded a hole right through the body (about 1.5" of material) and some other items. But a lot of old piping, mechanical parts, etc that have a long lifespan are failing.

Currently rebuilding an old Peugeot road bike from the 80s, and reminds me a bit like that, where you go to buy parts and the original ones aren't available, and usually some kind of 'making it work' adaptations required for a replacement. Pretty common to find a functional replacement that will do the same job but needs some kind of mounting, piping or other modification to fit, but usually means you need to dig through the TDP to hopefully find details on the original item, or just figure that out from scratch.

A lot of parts have shock, noise and vibration requirements as well, so can be a lot of testing to get things like a valve, pump etc catalogued.

So wash/rinse repeat that process a few thousand times, with half the HR, huge experience losses due to retirements, procurement bottlenecks, etc then add on COVID screwing up the global supply chain and it's a big problem.

While we're doing that we are also trying to support the fleet to keep limping along with work arounds, so usually the time people can put aside for this kind of work and the supporting engineering change documentation is a 'when you have time' thing, vice top priority.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The future HMCS William Hall. The bow Mega Block has been successfully rolled onto land level to form the fourth Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I see HDW is sidelined due to a fire suppression issue, is it a minor thing or a major thing to fix?

 

[Rainbow1910]

I see HDW is sidelined due to a fire suppression issue, is it a minor thing or a major thing to fix?

The Ottawa Citizen article pertaining to it (the only one article I can really find) has them speaking to an RCN spokesperson, they say DeWolf should be departing "early next week" pending successful inspection, cleaning and parts replacement to the fire fighting system. That article was posted on August 5th which would seem to suggest DeWolf should be departing sometime within the next few days. I can't speak to the particulars of the system but being out of service for maybe a week or two at most doesn't seem terribly catastrophic. These things happen, it's good to see them taking it seriously instead of sending it off with duct tape fixes.

 

[Underway]

I see HDW is sidelined due to a fire suppression issue, is it a minor thing or a major thing to fix?

Anytime you miss your sailing date it's not a minor issue it's automatically a significant issue. It will be fixed short-term, but I'm unsure as to if this has the potential to reoccur and thus needs a longer-term solution for the entire class.

 

[DBNSG]

Anytime you miss your sailing date it's not a minor issue it's automatically a significant issue. It will be fixed short-term, but I'm unsure as to if this has the potential to reoccur and thus needs a longer-term solution for the entire class.

HDW was still in Bedford basin as I crossed the Macdonald Bridge at 15:00 today

 

[Colin Parkinson]

First steel for the future HMCS Robert Hampton Gray has been cut, officially beginning production on Canada's sixth and Final Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS) for the
@RoyalCanNavy
built under the National Shipbuilding Strategy.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1559248581017579520

 

[Navy_Pete]

Those plasma cutters are pretty cool; they can handle something like a 80' x 40' sheet of plate, cut out all the parts and then has what is effectively an inkjet so you can mark the parts up for assembly and tracking.

When there are 4 ships under various stages of construction/trials gives you an idea of how complex the management of the NC program is where they are doing that with different classes of ship at the same time. At least ISI is only doing the one.

 

[suffolkowner]

2 more years and two more ships for CCG? 2023,2024 I expect that theyll be cutting steel for the CSC in that time as well